


i've got my ion you

by djjdkim



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Lab Partners, M/M, SeSoo, lmao science, lots of chemistry, side pairing xiuchen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 11:23:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13029996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djjdkim/pseuds/djjdkim
Summary: Sehun is most definitely not about to use any of those chemistry pick up lines on his new lab partner, Kyungsoo, because he's small but ridiculously intimidating.





	i've got my ion you

 

It's not fair. Sehun doesn't think this is fair at all.

Ever since middle school, all the way through to high school, he's always partnered with Jongdae.

Hell, Sehun and Jongdae had been friends since kindergarten, long time family friends-- their mothers would have little get togethers in holidays and they'd be forced to play together because their older brothers would be hanging out and ignoring them. And now, Jongdae's ditched him. 

He grumbles, throwing his bags and jacket under the bench, pulling on his lab coat, all the while glaring at the couple on the other side of the table, directly facing him. 

Neither of them had known anyone else when science class commenced in middle school so naturally became partners. It had become a habit that continued into high school-- then Jongdae goes and gets himself a boyfriend half way through their second year of college.

Sehun sends him another withering look but glances away, because Minseok is honestly too sweet to glare at. He didn't even consider the possibility that Jongdae getting a boyfriend would mean he's left partner-less for the lab practical class they made sure to share-- but here he is, sitting opposite the disgustingly cute couple, stomach turning itself over just thinking about having to work with someone completely new when he's been stuck with Jongdae for years.

“Yah stop glaring Oh Sehun,” Jongdae jabs at him, giving him that infuriating chuckle that he always does when he's being condescending and Sehun huffs, silently buttoning up his white lab coat. “You--”

Sehun doesn't even bother looking up, at least not until he realises a few minutes late that another person materialised in the seat next to him.

He tries to play off his surprise, considering the other student had moved so quietly, trying to glance at them from the corner of his eye and only catching a head of silky black hair that flops down over their forehead.

They're leaning down to get their lab coat from their bag and Sehun glances, panicked, at Jongdae and Minseok opposite him. 

“Yah introduce yourself you idiot,” Jongdae mouths at him with subtle movements of his arm and Sehun makes a pained face at him. 

He bites his lip, not liking the churning of his stomach, but forces what should be his fakest smile on and turns to his new partner.

“Hi,” he tries in the chirpiest tone his monotoned voice could manage. “I'm Sehun.”

The boy spins around on the stool, and Sehun’s fake smile slides right off.

He pushes up a pair of large, black-framed glasses on his nose bridge, flicking his black bangs out of his eyes before reaching a small hand out, all the while staring Sehun down in the most uncomfortable way he's ever been looked at.

Sehun hesitantly reaches out a hand, grasping the other student's, and attempts to retract his hand as quickly as he could.

“Doh Kyungsoo,” the boy eventually murmurs, entirely metaphorically blowing Sehun off his stool with the low, deep voice that Sehun's ears have to strain to catch. “So I suppose we're partners now.”

“Yeah,” Sehun breathes, slipping on his safety goggles just as the demonstrator calls for attention. “I guess we are.”

If the Kyungsoo boy heard him, he showed no indication of it, simply grabbing his neatly highlighted and annotated lab manual and flipping through the pages to today's experiment, leaving Sehun to send bewildered looks over at Jongdae and Minseok. Sehun, fishing out a pen from the mess in his bag, messily underlines an important step the demonstrator points out on the page-- daring to glance over at Kyungsoo, he breathes a silent sigh of relief that the black haired boy is not in fact underlining using a ruler. Sehun isn't sure if he could stand  _ anyone  _ that underlines using a ruler.

He turns to Kyungsoo the moment the demonstrator allows the students to begin, entirely expecting the tiny boy to push up his glasses and start allocating jobs for Sehun to do like some sort of dictator. Or at least give Sehun orders to follow and make him run around the laboratory collecting items.

Kyungsoo does neither, glancing through the instructions one more time and circling the amount of solvent required before nodding at Sehun.

“So I'll grab the 10 mLs of acetone while you set up?”

And he's off, head of black hair weaving around the other students milling about collecting ingredients, without waiting for a response from Sehun.

The tall boy lets out a sigh, bending down to fish out two clean beakers from the cupboard under his bench, sitting them side by side ready for Kyungsoo. Though he isn't sure exactly what would happen if he blatantly ignores what Kyungsoo tells him, something tells him he doesn't want to find out. 

  
  
  


Sehun looks up from his phone, nodding at Jongdae and Minseok as they walk out of the laboratory together and towards Sehun, both putting their bags down on the floor and stuffing their lab coats in. 

“You're lucky,” Jongdae’s saying as he swings his backpack back onto his shoulders. “Your new partner’s so fast, you get to finish early too.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, waiting for Minseok to finish carefully arranging his bag before the three of them set off. “I'm still stuck waiting for you losers though.”

He dodges a few kicks from Jongdae's direction, huffing. 

“He's so scary though, and I swear to God he has zero trust in me. He told me to prepare solution one then he comes back and goes through every single step and asks me if I did it.”

“Maybe it's just because he's unfamiliar with you, just to make sure things didn't go wrong,” Minseok quietly points out, his and Jongdae's hands swinging between them. “Like he isn't judging your capabilities and making assumptions though, isn't that a good thing?”

“I guess so,” Sehun sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “It stresses me out though. When he's constantly trying to catch me with his questions.”

“Well at least you're finally learning something,” Minseok giggles, shying away as Jongdae leans towards him to pinch his waist. “I'm fairly sure you learn more from Kyungsoo than you do from Jongdae anyday.”

Sehun laughs quietly, watching Jongdae grab Minseok’s hands and poke him in the ribs to make him squirm.

Jongdae pulls his smaller boyfriend in by the hand, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Minseok's neck just to make him giggle-- just like what they had done during the experiment, the moment the demonstrator looked away.

Sehun sighs, thinking of black hair and matching black rimmed glasses that take up half of his own partner’s face, thinks of thick brows furrowed in concentration at the liquids but also in judgment and skepticism at Sehun. He gives himself a little shake-- out of sight, out of mind, he doesn't need to think about Kyungsoo until next week's class, where he would have to deal with him again.

  
  
  


“I fucking hate having practicals at the end of the day,” Sehun grumbles, ignoring Jongdae’s dismissive snort as he trails behind his two friends.

He’s swinging his pristine lab coat in one hand, bag over his other shoulder, since he’d decided to take out his lab coat at lunch to save him the rush when they get there-- it doesn’t mean he’s any more enthusiastic about the class though. Considering he’s had classes since 9 AM, he’s tired, he wants to go home, and he most certainly does not want to deal with a 3 hour practical class with a ridiculously serious and terrifying partner.

Sehun strides into the lab infront of Minseok and Jongdae and leaves them to take out their practical things, pulling his lab coat over his shoulders and buttoning it up as he walks up to his bench-- and yet, despite how early he came in, Kyungsoo’s already at his end of the bench he shares with Sehun, flipping through the pages of today’s experiment.

Swallowing a sigh, Sehun kicks his bag under the bench, sliding his safety goggles on at the same time, nodding politely in Kyungsoo’s direction. Sehun only watches as Kyungsoo carefully highlights the amount of hydrochloric acid before pushing up his glasses-- and yet, despite all his staring, Kyungsoo still remains perfectly silent.

When he does speak up, it’s to hand Sehun a stirring rod from the drawer under his side of the bench that Sehun’s drawer was missing, letting Sehun start stirring the solution as he goes to fill a 50 mL beaker with a base for the next part. Sehun turns to him when he returns to their bench, watching Kyungsoo flick his black hair out of his eyes, handing him the dissolved solute in the acid.

He takes note of the boy’s tanned skin, far darker than Sehun’s incredibly fair skin, fingers thicker and shorter than Sehun’s, lips plumper and pinker than Sehun’s own when his tongue darts out to wet them as he jots observations down in his notebook. Sehun glances over at Kyungsoo’s notebook once he finishes preparing the second part and places the beaker down, Kyungsoo pushing it over to him for him to copy the observations from while he continues on the experiment.

“Have you added the glucose powder yet?” Kyungsoo calls, Sehun’s head snapping up from where he had been scrutinising Kyungsoo’s tiny, neat print.

“Yeah, it must have already dissolved.” Kyungsoo nods, swirling the contents of the beaker the slightest and peering at the liquid, leaving Sehun to return to Kyungsoo’s notes.

They’re simple observations, nothing fancy and just enough to answer the question on the property of the solvents and solutes, and Sehun hurriedly dot-points the main aspects of Kyungsoo’s notes into his own notebook, taking care to rephrase his sentences-- not so much because of plagiarism, considering they’re partners who share the same observations and experimental results, but more to improve Kyungsoo’s impression of him. Kyungsoo clearly doesn’t seem too impressed from the bits of Sehun that he’s already seen, but he doesn’t want to add ‘ _ copies all his work _ ’ onto the list as well.

“You know chemicals can seep through the top of those shoes right?”

Sehun looks up, finding Kyungsoo glancing down at his pair of canvas shoes in barely concealed skepticism, spluttering indignantly.

“They only said enclosed shoes, no one specified what material they had to be made out of,” he scoffs at the rising of Kyungsoo's thick eyebrows. “And it's not like we're using anything particularly dangerous today.”

He frowns at the eye roll Kyungsoo sends him, grumbling under his breath in his weak attempts to justify himself despite shrinking under Kyungsoo's obvious judgement. 

Though a week later, Jongdae too is subjected to the withering looks Kyungsoo flashes at them, opening the tap between their opposing tables too quickly, water spewing out into the sink and splattering onto Kyungsoo's side of the bench too. Though Kyungsoo says nothing, simply sighing and silently fetching paper towels to mop up Jongdae's mess, Sehun doesn't manage to stop himself from chuckling at the look of fear Jongdae sends him.

“Sorry,” Jongdae squeaks, dipping his head towards Kyungsoo who nods back at him.

“Don't worry about it.”

He swallows his laughter once he catches Kyungsoo's eyes, but as the three of them walk out of the laboratory together, after Kyungsoo has already packed up and left, Sehun’s openly laughing at the glare Jongdae's displaying, imitations of the looks Kyungsoo would send over the rim of his glasses. 

  
  


“Sehun!”

Sehun yelps in protest, a heavy arm swung over his shoulder, a figure dropping completely ungracefully into the seat next to him.

Another joins them at their usual lunch table, all mischievous grins and curious stares. “Sehun, tell us about that guy.”

Sehun shrugs Chanyeol’s arm off him, the even taller boy taking a large bite of his food before joining Baekhyun, opposite Sehun, their combined voices ridiculously loud.

Sehun glances, bewildered, between the two arts students. “What guy?”

“Your new lab partner,” Jongdae chimes in from next to Baekhyun, chortling.

“Jongdae told us all about it,” Baekhyun says around a mouthful. “About how he ditched you and you have to deal with a new guy now.”

“So what more do I have to say then?” Sehun grumbles, attempting to turn back to his chocolate milk.

“Apparently he’s absolutely terrifying,” Baekhyun snorts. “According to Jongdae.”

“This is the first time Sehun’s worked with someone else for how many years now?” Chanyeol cuts in, glancing around the table, and Sehun buries his face in a palm.

“He’s short,” he eventually concludes. “Like, shorter than Minseok hyung. Like he stands up to my chin.”

He watches with uninterested eyes as Baekhyun attempts to estimate his height in comparison to Sehun.

“He’s a neat freak, I think,” he continues instead, tone of voice equally nonchalant and dismissive. “I don’t think he’s a nerd though, just because he wears those big black framed glasses.”

“No?” Jongdae raises his eyebrows. “All his pre-lab work always looks perfect.”

“He does all his work, but he never does more than what’s needed,” Sehun hums. “He’s super neat and has super tiny handwriting, and he keeps his lab coat perfectly white, and I still can’t figure out how he does that.”

“We were using Alizarin red S solutions last week too,” Jongdae cuts in, loud, high voice drowning Sehun out.

“I’ll pretend I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Baekhyun responds cheerily, turning back to Sehun. “Please continue.”

“He’s basically scary and quiet and short,” Jongdae chuckles, only for Sehun to flash a roll of his eyes at him.

“He’s polite, and he’s a really efficient worker,” he huffs indignantly. “If I didn’t have to wait for Jongdae and Minseok hyung after prac, I’d be able to leave half an hour early because Kyungsoo makes sure we get out work done fast enough.”

The boy next to Sehun bursts out into loud laughter, Baekhyun poking at Jongdae, all mocking eyebrow raises and disapproving tongue clicks at Sehun’s words. Jongdae shoves Baekhyun off, grabbing his boyfriend by the hand and gesturing at Sehun, the three of them leaving behind their other two friends to make their way to the laboratories. And yet again, Sehun follows behind his two older friends, watching as they bicker back and forth, watching as Minseok occasionally holds onto Jongdae’s arm, Jongdae at times pulling him in by the waist.

It makes him smile. But the amused raise of Kyungsoo’s brows from next to him at their lab bench also makes him smile.

“Do you have a pen?”

Sehun glances up, handing Kyungsoo the pen he had been using to draw up a table of measurements in his notebook, watching as Kyungsoo uses it to write on beaker and test tube labels.

“Thank you,” the boy grins, carefully peeling off the adhesive label and sticking it onto the respective test tube with the corresponding liquid in it.

“Your pencil case is right there,” Sehun whines. “I was using that pen.”

“Why should I get my own when I can use yours?”

Sehun groans, playing alongside Kyungsoo’s chuckles, simply watching him label all the glassware they would be using, with greater focus and attention than listening to the demonstrator explain the safety precautions for the experiment earlier.

Kyungsoo turns to hand Sehun his pen, throwing the sticker sheet of the labels into the bin, but seems to think better of it-- instead, he slides it into the front chest pocket of his lab coat, striding off with his notebook to weigh solids to add to the test tubes. He’s flashing a small smile over his shoulder at Sehun’s whining, leaving the boy to get up to rummage through Kyungsoo’s bag and deliberately leaves his bag and pencil case in disarray in his search of another pen. 

Sehun had eagerly thrown his notebook and safety goggles into the abyss that is his backpack, too keen to leave the laboratory to head home-- and yet, to his dismay, he spies Kyungsoo making his way up to the demonstrator.

“I’ve volunteered to help clean up the lab,” Kyungsoo nods at him upon heading back to their bench and finding Sehun ready to go and yet still standing there and waiting for him. “You can go first. I’ll see you next week?”

Sehun opens his mouth to return the greeting, noticing Jongdae and Minseok waiting for him by the door of the laboratory-- his eyes sweep over the endless rows of benches, landing on Kyungsoo beginning to stoop down to check the little cupboards under each bench. And with a sigh, he sets his bag back down, feeling like he’s guilt tripped into it-- because he’s Kyungsoo’s partner after all.

He quickly waves off his older friends, pulling out the drawer to ensure no test tubes inside are broken, noticing Kyungsoo lift his head up to regard Sehun in surprise.

“I’ll help,” is all he says before he moves away onto the next drawer, trying to not dwell on feeling Kyungsoo’s gaze on his back.

And though he’s only replacing items and glassware in cupboards that Kyungsoo hands him, the soft clanking of beakers and flasks echo throughout the laboratory-- and yet despite the large, empty room, the focused silence they work in is somehow soothing and pleasantly hushed, to Sehun’s surprise. The initial awkward air dissipated somewhere along the line of cleaning dirty beakers, leaving only a calm, relaxed quiet between them. Sehun expected to hate it, not bask in the feeling of it.

Kyungsoo straightens up, dusting his hands off on his lab coat and waits for Sehun to stand and close the cupboard door, turning his round eyes on the younger student.

“Do you think we’re done?”

Sehun startles, once at Kyungsoo’s unexpected question after such a long silence despite his soothing and low voice, and a second time at his deep brown irises.

His response is a mere murmur of “Uh, yeah, it looks like it,” and Kyungsoo nods, moving to grab his bag, handing Sehun’s own to him.

“Let’s get out of here then.”

With the laboratory door clicking shut after them, Kyungsoo shoots a small smile over his shoulder at Sehun accompanied by a wave with a quiet “see you next week, Sehun”. It only leaves Sehun wondering and thinking of how Kyungsoo’s face would light up if only he allows his smile to widen.

  
  
  
  


“Are you still helping Kyungsoo this afternoon? How many weeks has it been?”

Sehun shrugs off the arm Jongdae loops around his neck, pursing his lips. “Yeah I guess so. It’s fun to clean together, I bet it would be boring as Hell if he did all of it on his own.”

Jongdae hums thoughtfully as they stride into the laboratory, Sehun moving away to his own bench, giving Kyungsoo a small wave when he looks up from his lab manual-- early, somehow even earlier than Sehun, once again. As always.

“I swear to God,” Sehun sighs as he kicks his bag underneath his bench. “I’ll never get here earlier than you.”

Kyungsoo gives him a smug tight-lipped grin at Sehun’s grumbling, and Sehun glances up opposite him at Jongdae’s snort.

“I remember you always tend to date short guys,” Jongdae chuckles, Sehun’s eyes immediately widening. “Kyungsoo, please save Sehun he always looks so miserable when he’s with Minseok and I, it’s honestly about time he starts dating.” he shoots the two of them a signature Cheshire grin that Sehun would normally throw something at-- Jongdae’s lucky this time, because Sehun doesn’t particularly want to be thrown out of the practical class.

He rolls his eyes, Jongdae’s incessant chattering going in through one ear and straight out the other.

“There's no such thing as a tall, good looking and single college student,” Jongdae comments loudly from the other side of the table, and Sehun bursts out laughing in the middle of handing Kyungsoo a glass stirring rod from his drawer.

“Nah, I'd never date Kyungsoo,” he turns to Jongdae, corners of his eyes crinkling with the mischievous grin tugging up his lips. “Didn't you know that I only date midgets, hyung? Kyungsoo’s obviously too tall for me, he doesn't quite qualify.”

Sehun turns back to Kyungsoo in time to catch him rolling his eyes with a smile hanging on those lips, before he jabs Sehun in the ribs with the stirring rod to hurry up and stir the lead nitrate in the water.

“You got deionised water, right?”

Sehun pauses in his stirring, blinking down at Kyungsoo. “No? This is tap water.”

Kyungsoo pauses before he snorts, hiding chuckles behind a palm and prompting Sehun to start his own laughs at his own stupidity.

“Don’t worry it’ll be fine,” Kyungsoo eventually smiles up at him, waving him off and telling him to keep stirring. “No one will know.”

“Are you sure?” Sehun prods at the chunk of solid still sitting at the bottom of the beaker. “I could just change it.”

“Don’t bother,” Kyungsoo shoots over his shoulder. “Who cares anyway?”

It makes Sehun smile, yet again, because he would’ve thought that Kyungsoo would be the one who would care about details that would sway their results. But with his gaze glued on Kyungsoo’s back as he collects acetic acid, Sehun finds himself and his initial expectations proven wrong time after time again, his hypothesis contradicted once more.

  
  


Kyungsoo throws a greeting at him as Sehun buttons up his lab coat, sitting down on the stool on his side of the bench.

“You again!” Sehun responds instead, the way he raises his eyes from his fingers nimbly working on the buttons nothing but teasing and playful. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Kyungsoo turns back to his notebook, neatly jotting down the date and the title of the experiment in the corner as he always does. Sehun shakes his head, still unable to understand his insistence on even numbering all the pages.

“It’s good scientific method and practice, Sehun,” Kyungsoo had chided him with a grin.

Sehun shrugs his bag off, and Kyungsoo chuckles.

“Someone’s keen for some titration.”

The taller boy only slides his goggles on, glancing at Kyungsoo from the corners of his eyes. “Nah, I’m just keen to watch you titrate.”

He hands the conical flask to Kyungsoo, letting his eyes rest on the rolled up sleeves of Kyungsoo’s lab coat as he places it on the white tile-- watching Kyungsoo’s movements with utmost intensity, watching the way his hands move, watching Kyungsoo’s eyes as they dart up to the measurements on the burette then down to the conical flask.

He watches how kyungsoo’s eyelashes move according to his eyes glancing up and down, hypnotised by the swirling of the liquid as Kyungsoo titrates, mesmerised by the focused furrowing of Kyungsoo’s thick brows that are revealed when Kyungsoo leans forward, his fringe swinging off his forehead.

Caught up in the moment and hung up on the details, Sehun wants to slide the glasses off Kyungsoo’s face to see his round eyes better.

Perhaps that’s how Sehun notices Kyungsoo’s gaze shifting to glance at him so quickly, moving to pretend to wipe his own goggles just as quickly to hide his lingering stares. And yet, Kyungsoo only asks him to put the flask aside, having already turned from transparent to a pale blue without Sehun even noticing.

He takes it from Kyungsoo’s hands in silence, admiring how perfectly pale the colour is, how Kyungsoo managed to so skillfully get it to that level. It’s only too easy to accidentally add too much of the titrant and end up with a dark blue colour in the flask, and Sehun even holds it up to the ceiling light, all wide eyes and dropped jaw as he peers at the flask.

“This is amazing hyung,” he murmurs. If Sehun didn’t expect himself to use the honourific, he doesn’t dwell on it-- and if Kyungsoo’s surprised by it, he doesn’t show it, only turning away with a small smile.

“Hurry up and get me the other flask, we have one more to do.”

  
  
  


Sehun turns, closing a drawer underneath a bench behind him as he goes-- and nearly knocks right into Kyungsoo, walking past him with a handful of stopwatches he had gathered from the other benches around the laboratory, heading to the container where they belong at the front of the room.

The entire laboratory is empty, once again, a good half an hour after the practical classes finished, finding only the two of them milling around inside. Sehun laughs the slightest, moving to the side, and growing increasingly flustered when Kyungsoo moves to the same side as him.

He chuckles, shaking his head in exasperation at the situation, the two of them blocking each other’s paths in such a large, empty room. He’s murmuring a quiet “Sorry hyung, I--” before suddenly hands are pushing flat on his chest and his back is pressed against the bench, Kyungsoo giving up on making his way past Sehun.

All of Sehun’s words die in his throat, leaving him blinking stupidly at the other boy, eyes darting everywhere on Kyungsoo’s face-- where would he be able to rest his gaze without giving himself away? He drags his eyes away from Kyungsoo’s lips, and not Kyungsoo’s eyes either, as the glasses he wears do absolutely nothing to hide the intensity of Kyungsoo’s stares.

He vaguely registers the slight clattering of Kyungsoo setting the stopwatches down, leaning in towards Sehun, and Sehun could absolutely feel his entire face and back of his neck flushing immediately.

“What,” he whispers, voice sounding strangely strained and very, very quiet, much more than he hoped it would. “What are you doing, hyung?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t bother answering the question, choosing to focus on more pressing matters at hand. Such as craning his neck up to slant his lips over Sehun’s.

Sehun isn’t quite sure when his eyes fluttered shut, or when his arms wound around Kyungsoo’s neck, fingers tangled in the short hairs at the back of his head in his attempts to bring him even closer-- but the way in which Kyungsoo’s lips mould against Sehun’s is captivating, and it becomes absolutely the only thing he manages to focus his mind on.

Kyungsoo’s lips are thick, their soft plumpness giving Sehun a generous taste of heaven with the slow, enticing way Kyungsoo kisses him, and Sehun’s lips part of their own accord, letting their heavy breaths mingle in the air before Kyungsoo’s diving in to claim his lips again.

Sehun drinks in the way both their panting breaths sound in the dead silence of the room when they finally pull away from each other, daring to crack open his eyes and glance at Kyungsoo from under his eyelashes-- to find Kyungsoo returning the gaze on him, head tilted the slightest to the side as he regards Sehun.

“What,” Sehun manages to choke out, clearing his throat. “What was that for?”

“That’s a good question,” Kyungsoo hums back after a moment’s pause. “I’m not sure I have an answer for you.”

 

Even a week later, Sehun’s watching, and waiting, and yet Kyungsoo has no answer for him, only simply moving around the laboratory as the last few students file out. He’s watching his lips, watching how he needs to periodically stop to push his glasses back up his nose bridge, watching Kyungsoo nibble on his bottom lip as he organises drawers. 

So he strides up to him, mind set on somehow kissing an answer out of Kyungsoo if he isn’t going to get one, wanting to remind himself of what Kyungsoo tasted like-- though that’s probably just an excuse, considering he’d been consistently thinking about the way Kyungsoo had kissed the breath out of him for the past week. 

Kyungsoo turns to look at him with a slight tap on the shoulder, before his mouth is falling open as Sehun grabs him around the waist and hoists him on top of one of the lab benches to press in between his shins, leaning up to mouth insistently at Kyungsoo’s lips.

Caught completely off guard, Kyungsoo immediately loops his arms around Sehun’s neck, Sehun taking the chance to glide his lips harder against Kyungsoo’s, feeling Kyungsoo hurriedly move to tilt his head and return Sehun’s kisses in equal intensity.

He raises a thick brow, lips reddened, when they pull away, harsh breathing resonating in the empty room.

“Is this,” he gestures towards the bench beneath him. “Because I’m too much of a midget?”

He only grins when Sehun frowns in his apparent confusion at him as his response.

“You said you only date midgets.”

Sehun bursts out into laughter, leaning forward to rest his forehead on Kyungsoo’s collarbone.

“You know I was only joking though.”

And all of a sudden, the heavy door to the laboratory is swinging open, Sehun jumping away from Kyungsoo at absolute record speed, pretending to inspect the test tubes in the drawer of the bench, looking up only when the demonstrator’s voice echoes out into the lab.

“Doh Kyungsoo, what are you doing on the bench?”

Kyungsoo quickly slides off, bowing. “I’m sorry--”

“I assumed you know better than to sit on the lab benches.”

Kyungsoo only rises from his position after the teacher leaves, immediately turning a glare in Sehun’s direction, who only manages to flash a sheepish smile back.

  
  
  
  


“So this is Kyungsoo, guys. He’s my…” Sehun trails off, pausing and glancing at Kyungsoo, the silence of the boys gathered around their usual lunch table only serving to quicken his pulse rather than provide any form of reassurance.

Kyungsoo simply freezes, not quite returning Sehun’s gaze but not letting his eyes rest on any of Sehun’s friends either.

“He’s my um. Lab partner,” Sehun resorts to, immediately flushing as Jongdae snorts particularly loudly as he stuffs his sandwich in his mouth.

“Oh yes, of course,” Minseok supplies helpfully, giving Sehun a look that he most definitely does not like. “Your  _ lab partner _ .”

Kyungsoo covers his face with his hands next to him and simply allowing Sehun to usher him into a seat opposite Minseok, and Sehun sighs, clearing his throat. 

“So you already know Jongdae and Minseok,” he speaks up instead, glancing over at Kyungsoo next to him. “That’s Chanyeol, and this is Baekhyun. Guys, this is Kyungsoo.” he narrows his eyes, glancing between the two of them, with identical, terrifying grins on their faces. “Don’t scare him off.”

“Never,” Baekhyun chortles, sitting up straighter in his seat and flashing Kyungsoo a bright smile, all perfectly white teeth and crescent eyes. “We’ve heard alot about you, Kyungsoo.”

Sehun simply watches as Kyungsoo nods politely at Baekhyun, managing to give him a half-smile in return, a simple lift of one corner of his lips. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Sehun’s joined, this time, with Kyungsoo at his side as they trail behind Jongdae and Minseok after leaving for their late practical class together. He doesn’t quite manage to hide the glances he shoots in Kyungsoo’s direction, not with Jongdae leaning in towards Minseok, their hands joined. 

Yet today, both of them must have been cleaning at a ridiculous pace-- it doesn’t take long for the two of them to walk out of the empty, polished laboratory together, Sehun stuffing his belongings messily in his bag and stands around waiting as Kyungsoo neatly folds his lab coat and tucks it in his bag carefully.

“So,” he speaks up, hearing a hum from Kyungsoo’s direction as he keeps his eyes on the ground. “So what are we, hyung?”

At this, Kyungsoo glances up, slowly zipping up his bag.

“What do you mean?” he murmurs, straightening up, looking up at Sehun with those big, round eyes of his that his big glasses do nothing to hide. 

“You know what I mean,” Sehun huffs, pursing his lips. “Like, I think we’re friends, not just lab partners,” Kyungsoo hums again at that, at Sehun’s poor attempt of justifying the horrendous introduction to his friends, swinging his bag over his shoulder. “But we’ve kissed and made out, in a goddamn laboratory, and I want to do it again.”

He chances a glance at Kyungsoo from beneath his eyelashes, nearly startling out of his skin upon noticing Kyungsoo’s contemplative gaze resting on him. 

He blinks, tilting his head to one side just the slightest as he regards Sehun. “Do you want to kiss and make out elsewhere, then?”

Sehun flushes immediately and focuses his eyes on his worn sneakers once again, only for Kyungsoo to step closer, one hand under Sehun’s chin and raising his face again to look at him as he sends Sehun a small smile.

“But I think we should go on a date before that. Don’t you?”

Sehun’s breath hitches.

He swallows, nearly choking on it-- Kyungsoo’s fingers on his chin are warm, so warm, and yet Kyungsoo’s eyes looking at him manage to be even warmer. His tongue darts out involuntarily to lick at his lips, the entirety of his mouth feeling far too parched and dry to formulate any coherent response.

“Yeah, I…” Sehun mumbles, blinking rapidly at Kyungsoo. “Would you like to? Go on a date with me?”

He watches as Kyungsoo’s lips immediately curve into one of his prettiest smiles-- thick lips stretching out to resemble one of the hearts Sehun’s doodled on the side of his lab manual when thinking of Kyungsoo. 

  
  
  


Sehun lets out a quiet grunt before the noise is lost somewhere between his mouth and Kyungsoo’s, feeling the hard edge of the lab bench pressing into the small of his back, and Kyungsoo’s hands roaming over the front of his lab coat, across his chest.

Practice makes perfect, they say-- and they’ve been practicing.

They’ve been practicing how to finish cleaning up the laboratories at record speed once one of them initiates the touches that results in sloppy, rushed kisses shared in the strange mixture of fear that a demonstrator would walk in mixed with the desire to keep going and keep kissing each other. Sehun could just feel Kyungsoo’s hand resting gently on his waist as he leans behind Sehun to correct a misplaced beaker one minute, but then be shoved against the bench the next, Kyungsoo leaving pecks all over his face.

And Sehun would’ve never thought that he would delight in having their practical at the end of the day, after lunch with Kyungsoo and his friends. Then they could leave campus unrushed together afterwards and head to grab food together, hands interlinked, Kyungsoo laughing in his low, smooth voice as Sehun recounts the events of his other classes of the day.

He’d find Kyungsoo in the middle of the day during their shared breaks, dragging him off for coffee, Sehun finding them seats and waving Kyungsoo off to pick their drinks and order.

“Surprise me,” he’d say, scrolling through his phone as Kyungsoo waits for their coffee. He’d always be greeting his boyfriend with a wide smile when Kyungsoo places the cup infront of him, watching Sehun take a sip with wide, expectant eyes.

And somehow, Sehun always loves it, always loves the strangest mixtures that Kyungsoo picks out of the Starbucks menu, loves even the iced drinks Kyungsoo picks on cold days and loves the steaming coffees Kyungsoo orders on sunny days.

But he loves the taste of Kyungsoo’s own drink more, when he leans over in their little booth by the window to kiss him. And he loves the way he could feel Kyungsoo smiling against his lips even more than that.

And Sehun loves sliding Kyungsoo’s glasses off from the passenger’s seat, leaning across the console to kiss him as deeply as he dares to, pressing his lips insistently to Kyungsoo’s and delighting in feeling the expanse of skin on his boyfriend’s face rather than the hard surface of his glasses pressing against Sehun’s nose bridge. He loves to moan shamelessly in the safety of the car the moment Kyungsoo slides his tongue along the roof of Sehun’s mouth and against Sehun’s own, and he loves Kyungsoo sucking on his bottom lip, pulling the most colourful assortment of sounds from Sehun he could before he lets Sehun step out of the car and head back home.

Sehun loves messily sticking Kyungsoo’s glasses back on his face before planting a last kiss on his boyfriend’s cheek and seeing himself out of the car. He loves taking note of the mess Kyungsoo’s usually neat black hair has become from his own tugging and grabbing, and he loves watching Kyungsoo fix his clothes, straightening out his collar and smoothing the wrinkles in his shirt. 

And Sehun loves waving at his boyfriend from his bedroom window, watching him drive off into the evening-- and he even loves the heavy settling of disappointment and longing to spend even more time together in his chest, because in a mere fifteen minutes his phone would light up, and he’d giggle like an absolute idiot at Kyungsoo’s reminder to do the next pre-lab quiz before their class. But his giggles would die down, replaced with a simple, bright smile at Kyungsoo’s message of similar longing, of ‘ _ see you tomorrow Sehun-ah, 11am? _ ’.

And Sehun loves Kyungsoo, because he would make sure that Sehun would see him holding two cups of coffee standing outside his class at 11am sharp, armed with shining eyes and soft smiles and short kisses that are even softer.

  
  
  
  


 

_ “So this is Kyungsoo, guys,” Sehun smiles, glancing down at the boy tucked into his side with Sehun’s hand gently resting against Kyungsoo’s waist. “Be nice, he’s my boyfriend.” _

_ “Yes we know,” Baekhyun hollers, Chanyeol blinking big, wide eyes at the two of them. _

_ “Wasn’t he your boyfriend before?” he asks, and Kyungsoo barks out a laugh, watching Sehun’s cheeks rapidly turn an embarrassingly bright shade of red. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this is way shorter than i hoped it would be! it's not even 6.5k words smh but i hope you enjoyed either way!  
> you can chat to me on social media:  
> IG: @djjdkim  
> tumblr: @djjdkim  
> if you want writing prompts for exo: @xoxoprompts (on tumblr)  
> Twitter (for writing updates): @djjdkim


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